Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1789-1924 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more

Download & Play

Questions

Newspaper Page Text

moral purity and decency. They would have to be pretty big barrels to hold I
all the stuff and nonsense that would prqperly belong in them. First of all
we should have to reserve a big portion of the space within for the gossip,
the slander and the' mean stories that are floating about the community. 1
If instead of being handed from lip to lip the first man to whom they
-are told should, make straight for this moral refuse barrel and dump the |
"truck there, what a saving of time and thought of his fellow citizens he I
would bring about. Or if we could get back of this secondary agency ;
to the man who originated the tale and persuade him before he opens hi3
mouth to any' one to ask himself if the best place for the idle tattle which
he is about to. set going be not the refuse barrel — why, that would be bet
ter yet Most talk of this sort is the fruit of envy or malice, and has
little basis in fact. And if in those rare cases where there is ground for
the story set in motion, the man who gives it circulation may well ask him
self what .is .to 'be gained by spreading the knowledge of the situation
broadcast. He may bte doing a fellow man a grievous wrong, the effects I
of which may blight his whole after life.
SGgS?' MJf.Jik y ¦ N many of our large cities, we are beginning to see
pBi JUii. about railway stations or in. parks or in other public
Iw^ii i^^fe place" barrelson which are painted in large letters these
Whs^.vjJIIIP words: "Throw rubbish here." They, are put there either
|i-jLx<p^K c by the city government or by some private, society or
<*$r\§^ JL^ K an i ze d in behalf of greater beauty and cleanliness. They
i \s. «1 are a we^ come s '8 n of the deepening public interest in
n^ j- matters pertaining to our common life as citizens. ; To be
i sure a great many persons pay no heed to the injunction. r-The presence of
these barrels does not make it unnecessary longer tb"employ street clean
ers. But on the other hand many persons do respect the advice and; in
stead of leaving their egg shells and banana peels to .litter' up, the public
picnic ground, and instead of emptying their pocket's old papers on the
street, they make proper use of these barrels as they "come in their, way.
Thus the habit is established and grows. ,
I sometimes wish there were moral rubbish barrels here and there in
conspicuous places to i exert their silent but potent r influences ' in behalf of
THROW RUBBISH HERE
By The Parson
Scrgl H? P e ? ovlt £ h « thc diplomacyof Russia is the wonder of the world. Reply to this note from the powers
at once. Tell^ them Russia is glad to assure the other enlightened nations of the earth that she has no intention
of seizing Manchuria. Then send a few more warships and regiments over there and tighten things up. wherever
they seem to need it. The great thing about diplomacy is to know when to take advantage of it. When you say
you are coming out, push your way a little further in. The other fellow won't notice it or he'll be so glad to think
your intentions are good and honest that he will let it pass. The diplomat who starts to come out when he says
he will cant draw pay from Ruisia. I think if w e keep up the gait we will Jiav e Manchuria good? and solid for
ever by. the time we gst aoout six more protests. Howl long for them days to come when we can rescue the
poor Chinamen from barbarism and give them good, old, solid Christian civilization." . .
"Why," says Sergius. "are the Chinese a barbarous race?" ¦-. c- -
•— ui durino ',, Nicholas; answers, "butt they are. I've heard it from more than a dozen sources/' .
'Because Sergius tells him, "every Chinaman has to be able to shave the other fellow's head."
Then isicholas has one of the epileptics he is subject to and by the time they get him out of it England's just
had another disagreeable argument with the Mad Mullah and forgot all about the open door. The luckiest thing
that ever happened to Russia is that all the rest of the countries have other troubles. If any citizen and taxpayer
hed the way Russia lies, he wou d get licked so he couldn't walk about the first day he done bizness, and if he
went right ahead and done things hed just. promised not to do, the way Russia does every day in the year they
vouldnt ennybody elserbe on speakin* terms with him. That's where it comes in handy to be a nation instead
of a man. I don t thmk they are goin' to fight over there about Manchuria. *
Yours, for the protection of thc honored heathen, JEFFERSON DOBBS.
~e/^kk^Hkto ULBERRY CENTER, Sept. io.— Is there goin' 'to be war over China or ain't there? Some folks
~%F/Y$i2&fviSj& says yes and some says the last great war has been fought. This is a 'question that ought , to
understood by the whole civilized world. I* will explain it. What nearly everybody wants m
jh/^a^gi^lxChina is the open door. John Bull wants the open door there so he can stand in it and push the
othcr pcople back - Uncle Sam wants the open door and is goin' to have it or a fight if the
/ AYV$^* other boys don't say they are sorry they can't let it be open. Germany ; wants the open door in
•?/// I VNc\ China, .but has a back door at home to watch purty close so as to keep the Frenchmen from
cT I in. Japan wants the open door, too. because the Japs have got so ': they can stack the
cards and beat the Chinamen nearly every time now, so they think it's no more than right to have a chance to set
in the game. , .
Russia's the only one that doesn't want the other foreigners to go over to China and sell the people there a
lot of things they don't want Russia has a warm place -in' her heart for the Chinese. She wants to give the Chinamen
a good, wholesome, civilized government so they can be shot and burned if they don't give up their fool of a reli
gion and believe as the Russians tell them to. The old way of runnin' the government in China makes Russia sad
every time she thinks about it. • - ':¦'.¦'
"Sergius Petrovich," says the Czar to one of his right hand men. "I been thinkin' about. them poor devils of
Chinamen and it makes my hart aik. Think of them bein' about nine hundred and twenty-seven years behind the
times. We ought to do something to help them up in the human scale." . ,
"How would it do to whoop a lot of them up to Siberia," says Serge; "that's purty high."
"No, Sergius Petrovich," says his Majusty, "you don't understand me. I am thinkin' of the way they arc robbed
by their government. They say nearly every official gets a rake-off and don't try to deny it. That's wrong. It
ought to all go to the head of the bizness. If he wants to pass it around after gettin' it that's a different thing.
Have we received any joint protests from the powers to-day?" - ¦ -^\\r" : - ;
"Yes," says Serge, "here's one that says we must give up Manchuria right away."
"When did we get the first note tellin' us to haul up and pull out of Manchuria, Sergius Pctrovitch?"
"I think it was six years ago last December," says Sergius. .
"How many times have England and the rest of them asked us to git out since then?— My! I wish the help
around this pallus wouldn't slam the doors so blamed hard. I thought that was a bomb. Get me the camphor bot
tle and a high ball, Sergius Petrovich. I'm dizzy." '
After while when the Czar's braced up again Sergius says:
"I haven't kept track of how many times they've told us we can't have Manchuria, but I think the average has
been nearly one warning or joint note a month." T V
"Are we enny farther out than we were at the start, Sergius Petrovitch?"
Serge winks and Nicholas says:
THE ORACLE OF
MULBERRY CENTER
By S. E. KISER
NsJ-£ #*™\ . PEAKING of bull-pups that turned out to be terriers,
>S^f\fd naturally calls to mind the case of my old friend Jere-
WiN^yJ^a. miah Simpkins' son. There isn't a solider man in the
** ry~*&(S& Boston leather trade than Jeremiah, nor a bigger scamp
" n ~ f^ TO^^r at aw cant touc h tiian his son Ezra. There isn't
jU-^ -^rT^f^Jl an ounce °* rca l meanness in Ezra's whole body, but he's
g^>S5^|S!§232|P just naturally and unintentionally a maverick. When he
.r^grvfrtTES-^aa^: came but of college his father thought that a few years'
• experience in the hide department of Graham & Co. would be a good thing
for him before he tackled the leather business. So I wrote to send him on
and I would give him a job, supposing, of course, that I was getting a
yearling of the steady, old, reliable Simpkins strain.
I was a little uneasy when Ezra reported, because he didn't just look
as if he had had a call to leather. He was a tall, spare New Englander, with
one of those knobby foreheads which has been pushed out by the over
crowding of. the brain, or bulged by the thickening of the skull, accord
ing as you like or dislike the man. His manners were easy or familiar by
the same standard. He told me right at the start that, while he didn't know
just what he wanted to do. he was dead sure that it wasn't the leather
business. It seemed that he had said the same thing to his father and
that the old man had answered, "Tut, tut," and told him to forget it and
to learn hides. • -
i ' i-impkins learned all that he wanted to know about the oacking industry
in thirty days, and I learned all that I wanted to know about Ezra in the
same time. Pork-packing seemed to be the only thing that he wasn't in
terested in. I got his resignation one day just five minutes before the one
S which I was having written out for him was. ready; for I will do Simpkins
the justice to say. that there was nothing slow about him. He and his father
split up, temporarily, over it, and, of course, it cost me the old man's trade
and friendship. I want to say right here that the easiest way in the world
to make enemies is to hire friends.
I lost sight of Simpkins for a while and then he turned up at the office
one morning as friendly and familiar as ever.- Said he was a reporter and
wanted to interview me oh the December wheat deal. Of course I wouldn't
talk on that, but I gave him a little fatherly advice — told him he would
sleep in a hall bedroom all his life if he didn't quit his foolishness and go
back to his father, though I really didn't believe it. He thanked me and
went off and wrote a column about' what I might have said about December
wheat, and. somehow gave the impression that I had said it.
The next I heard of Simpkins he was dead. The Associated Press dis
' patches announced it, the Cuban Junta confirmed it, and last of -all. a long
dispatch. from Simpkins himself detailed the circumstances leading up to the
"atrocity," as the headlines in his paper called it.
I got a long wire from Ezra's father asking me to see . the managing
editor and get all the facts for him. It seemed that the paper had thought a
heap of Simpkins and that he had been sent out to Cuba as a correspondent
and stationed with the Insurgent army. Simpkins in Cuba had evidently
lived up to the reputation of Simpkins in Chicago. When there was any
From "Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His 8on" by Oeorg e Horace Lorteer.
By Permission of Small, Maynard & Co., Publishers, Boston, Mass.
news he sent it, and when there wasn't he just made news and sent that
along. f .r . .
. The first word of his death had come in his own letter, brought across
on a filibustering steamer and wired on from Jacksonville. It told, with
close attention to detail— something he had learned since he left mo— how he
had strayed away from the little band of insurgents with which he had beta
out scouting, and, had blundered into the Spanish lines. He had been
promptly made a prisoner, and despite his papers proving his American citi
zenship, and the nature of his job. and the red cross on his sleeve, he had
been tried by drumhead court martial and sentenced to be shot at dawn.
All this he had written out, and then, that his account might be complete,
he had gone on and imagined his own execution. This was written in a
sort of pigeon, or perhaps you would call it black Spanish. English, and let
on to be the work of the eye-witness to .< whom Simpkins had confided
his letter. He had been the sentry over the prisoner, and for a small bribe
in hand and the promise of a larger one from the paper, he had turned his
back on Simpkins while he wrote out the story, and afterward had deserted
and carried it to the Cuban lines. '--^y
» The account ended: "Then, as the order of fire was given by the lieu
tenant, Senor Simpkins raised his eyes toward Heaven and cried: 'I pro
test in the name of my American, citizenship I"* ¦ At the end of the letter,
and not intended for publication, was scrawled: "This is a bully scoop for
you. boys, but it's pretty tough on me. Good-bye, Simpkins."
The managing editor dashed a tear from his eye as he read this to
me, and gulped a little as he said: "I can't help it; he was neh a
d d thoughtful boy. Why, he even remembered to inclose descriptions
for the pictures!"
Simpkins' last story covered the whole of the front page and thret
columns of the second, and it just naturally sold cords of papers.- His edi
tor demanded that the State Department take it up, though the Spaniards
denied the execution or any previous knowledge of any such person as this
Senor Simpkins. That made another page in the paper, of course, and then
they got up a memorial service which was good for three columns. One of
these fellows that you can find in every office, who goes around and makes
the boys give up their lunch money to buy flowers for the deceased aunt
of the cellar boss* wife, managed to collect twenty dollars among our clerks,
and they sent a floral notebook, with "Gone to Press," done in blue immor
telles on the cover, as their "tribute."
I put on a plug hat and attended the service out of respect for his father.
But I had hardly got back to the office before I received a wire from Ja
maica reading: "Cable your correspondent here let me have hundred. No
tify father all hunk. Keep it dark from others.- Simpkins."
I kept it dark and Ezra came back to life by easy stages and in such
a way as not to attract any special attention to himself. He managed to
get the impression around that he'd been snatched from the jaws of death
by a rescue party at the last moment. The last I heard of him he was in
New York and drawing ten thousand a year, which was more than he could
have worked up to in the leather' business in a century.
THE STORY OF A "SCOUP"
By Old John Gorgon Graham
Be kind and attentive to some rich
old fool, and people will call you a
mercenary wretch. _
? ? ' ** ':
Be tactful, and people will wondtf
what you a^e driving at.
Be successful and people will say
you're putting on airs and your head
needs manicuring or any old thing.
Treat your friends, and if you fret
down in the world people will jay
you deserve exactly what you got.
Be talkative, and they will critidxe
you.
• * •
Be attractive, and women will be
jealous, and seemingly wonder what
men can see in you.
• • ?
Be independent, and people will say
you put on airs.
• * *
Be ead, and everybody will avoid you
as being so depressing.
Be candid, and your friends will call you ill-bred,
Be pious, and people will call you a hypocrite.
Be virtuous, and your friends will be sutDldoua^.
Be quiet, tad people will think you
are fr«*^Mwg mischief.
• • ?
Be economical, and people will 'say. you are too stingy to live.
• * *
Be philosophical, and people will call you a regular old fool. ,
• * *
Mind your own business and people will call you "so mysterious."
• * • ?
Be chic and stylish, and your friends will wonder who pays your bills-
Be silent, and people will mistake it for wisdom.
\/V %f MOVE robs you. Labor enriches you.
V }y ' wwSEk e K enerou8 » an<^ if vou keep out of the poorhouse
i)y>^ lO^S 3'ou'll be blooming lucky.
arffiHffi^Jl h w? Be Rood, anJ you'll bore every one till they feel like
Be confidential, and people will call you the worst old Rossip that ever
Its a queer old world of folly, and 'sin,
Where fool* step in and often win—
Where wiser folks such failures are,
'Twould . seem the fool were wiser far.
The wise one stops too lonjj to think—
The fool, he gives a knowing wink.
And rushes in to win the prize—
The wise one wakes to rub his eyes.
And wonders . why such fools as he
Could get ahead of such as me —
Which proves that hustie versus mind
Is where the fool's not left behind—
So comfort take and rush right in.
For fools oft hare a chance to win.
¦ ;• .'. • . ; ? ¦
¦ -: ' . If you want : to
. cool off a lover,
ridicule him . or his
.friends./-,
.•••; :*¦¦-*.;
Never gush over
a man when he's
tired or hungry.
It is not i the
things that we
have, but it is the
things that we
. have, not; that keep
¦ us 'on the anxious
V bench. V:
• ; : ;: !c r.-,*-. ¦ *¦/¦;• .-: t - 1
I . r The ¦ man , ' who
t ; never kicks .often
— vr- stands still tb% be
kicked. :*'
» Never think yourself indispensa
ble. It is surprising what wretched
memories people have when it : comes
to the question of forgetting those who
have favored them. ; •
Be unconventional, people will
wonder if you are better, or worse than
you seem. ' ¦¦•*"'* ¦:•:¦'. ; ' ¦¦'¦. ¦
• • ¦ • - k:-::-, ¦' ¦
Speak kindly of other*, and people
will iay "You Judge as you want to
be Judged."
Get into trouble, and every one will
«*y. 'T told you •*?-.><¦ V
A woman always judges another .woman by her clothes. A badly tail
ored woman is found guilty every ti me . : ¦ :.
« • ? ''••. * ¦; :¦ - i
Be cautious, and people will say, » you are .no better than you ought
to be. . ' ¦ '•-
* *¦ * ::: - ¦!- V •_ v :
Be jolly, and people will dub you u "Swift,"
Be honest, and your friends will call you rude
... ¦? . . * ¦.•;'•¦
Be dignified, and people will call you uppish. '
Be sincere, and people wiU be, sure you have an ax to grind.
Be cold and stately, and people will wonder if you are a victim bjPre
i morse. - ¦ .- .. . •--.....¦ ¦. ¦ ¦ . •
If iou Ret into hard luck, don't be surprised If your friends are af
flicted with a loss of memory. ¦¦¦¦ -• << ,.
? '_ ? •.-¦ *;.?• ... ,/¦¦"¦' '-¦ - ... o';.- -¦
A jackass with a megaphone •attachment is an awful combination.
Wear diamonds, and your friends will ruin your reputation by wondering
(out lo"d) how you got them.
¦ m : ¦ * * * ¦¦¦ • ' ' •'••' •
ME-OWS OF A KITTY
*HE SUNDAY CALIj.
2